Maybe they could have their own talk show. And it could broadcast coast to coast
*ghost-to-ghost
Are you getting enough oxygen? flex
So everyone who ever died spends all eternity consciously drifting in space.
So eventually, the ghosts stopped thinking.
Massless light is still affected by gravity, though…
Mass distorts spacetime, which to an outside observer appears to change the direction light travels. The light travels in a straight line.
Gravity doesn’t alter the particle’s trajectory (or ours, for that matter). The warping of spacetime from Earth’s mass causes our movement through space to accelerate “down” at ~9.8 m/s^2
So the ghosts are in the center of the Earth, in nearly literal hell.
They would fall through the center of the earth, continue back up through the mantle, pop up momentarily to spook someone on the opposite hemisphere, then repeat the whole trip in reverse with a period of about 40 minutes.
Hm… actually are they incorporeal AND massless, or just incorporeal?
If just incorporeal, you’re right of course that initially after death they’d be falling back and forth, but over time through uneven gravity/curvature and through heat loss (stretching of unequal acceleration applied across the ghost essence, potential energy conversion, yadda), they should generally settle to the center after some time, unless there’s a maximum natural pressure of ghosts at whatever temperatures they have, so they may spread out somewhere within the crust if there are enough of them.
If they’re incorporeal AND massless, then I totally F’d up and they’d fire off at light speed as soon as they shed their mortal coil.
But light isn’t a particle it’s a wave. I mean, just look at it… Oh… Forget it. It’s a particle.
It’s neither a particle nor a wave, it’s a photon.
A zebra is neither a horse nor a tiger, though it shares properties with both.
It was a joke – it behaves as a wave until you observe it; then it collapses into a particle.
I had to search for a bit but I finally found this !science_memes@mander.xyz post: https://mander.xyz/post/3197041
If the spacetime is distorted, and the light no longer appears to travel in a straight line, does that not mean that spacetime itself and the light that travels in are no longer straight?
How can a straight thing be distorted but still be straight?
It is straight in reference to the distorted spacetime.
Conventionally, a straight line is defined as the shortest path between two points, but if you take a plane that is not flat, say the surface of a ball, the shortest path between two points will be curved. But from the perspective of the two-dimensional man who lives in surface, the line is straight because it moves perfectly along his world.
Is this 2D-3D comparison supposed to be like a human-understandable analogy for a 3D-4D relationship?
I saw an explanation once about how time is the 4th dimension. They drew a line on the edge of a book. From the perspective of a single page (2D) it just looks like a dot, but because we can see many instances of that 2D representation it appears to us as a line. An individual page represents how we experience time.
Is your ball example supposed to be kind of like that because I just can’t imagine how spacetime could be a 2D thing in a 3D universe.
Well, kind of. The time dimension is a bit tricky, though – in Minkowsky space, a common way to think about spacetime, it is hyperbolic in relation to the other dimensions. In a nutshell, this means that distance is not the square root of the sum of the squares of the distances in specific dimensions, but rather of the difference. This makes it especially tricky to visualise. (I do recommend you check out this series by minutephysics, he does a great job at making it intuitive)
My analogy, therefore, doesn’t translate directly to spacetime, but it does provide a very simple 2d explanation for why straight things can act curved (even in 4d).
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I think a better way of explaining it is with the idea of a shortest path, and not nessesarily a straight line. With two points in space the shortest path between them will be a straight line. If there’s a large amount of gravity tugging on space time the shortest path will be curved.
That’s called General Relativity and Reference Frames.
Start watching PBS Spacetime if you actually want to get into it.
You’re also entirely missing the point of the comment that was a joke entirely re-explaining the “reason” for ghosts ending up at the center of the Earth, which is implied by the original comment.
Well that’s just a theory, albeit good, and there’s a good chunk of modern science that refuses to marry it, so let’s not be too sure about it, shall we?
Edit: Wikipedia summarises it nicely:
Although general relativity is highly regarded for its elegance and accuracy it is not without limitations: the gravitational singularities inside of black holes, the ad hoc postulation of dark matter, as well as dark energy and its relation to the cosmological constant are among the current unsolved mysteries regarding gravity; all of which signal the collapse of the general theory of relativity at different scales and highlight the need for a gravitational theory that goes into the quantum realm.
Edit: Also highly recommend this read: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-gravity/
I really hate that people just accept these advanced theories as objective truth. It’s just the best theory we have right now, that doesn’t mean that’s how it actually works. It’s good enough that we can almost always just use the theory and get good results, but then people get all pissy when you point out that it’s still just a theory and is not without its flaws.
This sounds like it should be the premise of a Doctor Who episode.
Or they’re flung in a straight-line tangent out from Earth’s orbit, like water drops flying off a spinning sponge
An ever expanding fan of souls, bleeding into the dark
I misread ghosts as “goats”
Psh, goats aren’t real
Goats can climb anything, so maybe they climbed all the way into space?
Mountain goats can if the Mountain goes to space.
Excuse me sir I am a goat and I resent that statement
I think about the same thing every time I watch a time travel movie or show.
They should teleport into empty space every time
Well, not The Doctor.
Who?
Exactly
I guess that depends on whether you only travel through time (time vs space), or whether you follow the time-line back (aka. travel through time and space, kinda like both you and I are doing right now).
EDIT: there’s also the reference point, and whether you can bring a physical vessel, or have to possess your younger self.
Back to the Future appears to be using a kind of relative spatial reference point, and you bring your body along the ride.
Contrary, Steins Gate (the part shown in the series) uses a body as reference, and has you “possess” said body. Though it hints that Back to the Future-like travel is also possible.
Not sure if I can name any story where time and space are disconnected.
Ahh, enjoyer of time travel movies and anime!
Larry niven and the known space universe. Doesn’t have time travel, but does have a form of teleportation, where you have to offset the energies for velocity changes between teleport target and teleport destination.
There’s scifi that did this. The series Seven Days is one example
This assumes some concept of location independent of the surrounding matter.
We like to think that way because we live on a mostly-not-changing clump of rock and dirt.
There is nothing to define location other than what’s nearby.
The only alternative anyone ever proposes is larger clumps of matter further away. Relative to the sun. Relative to the center of the Milky Way. Center of the Milky Way is the most “legit” Nonmoving Point we can think of.
But maybe the legitimacy of the nonmoving point is based also on its nearness to you. Perhaps the thing that defines the wormhole’s position through spacetime is inertia and gravity.
Hard to see what else it might be, other than “it doesn’t move” which, the entire point above being, doesn’t really exist
Which is why they’re usually just temporary visitors to Earth. The planet is actually passing through them, so they fade in, crying their despair at their lonely fate, and fade back out…
So…we’re flying through a universe filled with ghosts and the appear as we happen upon them as we glide through space. Which is truly fascinating since most ghosts people see appear to be humans or humanoids clad in local clothing from the most recent three centuries of Human fashion. It’s mind boggling to think how many recent-development earths must have passed just in front of us over the billions of years of universe for us to see such spirits.
Either that or there are a lot of liars and hallucinations out there. I know which one of these options I believe in!
Those aren’t the only two possibilities
And the orbit of the earth passes by random groups of ghosts every Day of the Dead, Obon, Halloween’s, or ancestors day in which ever culture there ks
Gives the term “stuck in limbo” a very sad, lonely meaning.
i mean, presuming ghosts can talk to each other there should at least be some company, and they ought to get to see some celestial objects now and then.
and hell at least you have space to stare at, as opposed to the nothingness of limbo
True. Maybe every now and a thousand years, something might happen. Or at least the constant input might be used for purpose.
Still hell though, reduced to being a coordinate in time-space, only observing.
Wide open starfield shot. Deep space. Nothing is moving.
In the middle of the screen, but small in the distance, floats a transparent human form. It’s motionless, but looks relaxed. Asleep perhaps.
Suddenly all its limbs start thrashing wildly in frustration. This goes on for about twenty five seconds, then it’s still again.
You just made death infinitely more scary
I’m so sorry
If that were true, they’d speed away from us at about 900mph.
Much faster than that, even. The surface of the planet moves at up to ~1000mph relative to the earth’s center of mass, but once you factor in the orbit around the sun, the orbit around the galaxy, and even the galaxy’s motion, you’re looking at miles per second instead of mph.
One article I found when googling this says that measuring relative to the cosmic microwave background, we are moving at 390 km/s.
Relative to what, though? A lot of lore has ghost tied to locations on earth, which are typically fixed places. I guess if there was some kind of astology ghost tied to certain stars it might rocket off in some unexpected way.
Maybe that could be a tool in some exorcist’s bag. Convince a ghost it’s tied to some stars, and trick it into changing its frame of reference.
Sorry, adhd, just saw the microwave background part. What i said still makes sense though.
I think this might be the most fun answer, that the ghost decides its own frame of reference and can be tricked to choosing the wrong thing then just fly off into space at incredible speed.
Ghosts are really bad werewolves confirmed
Are they also inertialess? Being immune to gravity won’t make them just stop; stop, relative to what?
So, they continue in a straight line, while their body moves in rotation with the Earth’s surface × orbit around the sun × orbit around Sagittarius A × whatever movement the Milky Way is making based on the local cluster… I wonder how much angular movement the supercluster is making.
I think the inertia question would affect the velocity of the ghost relative to the rest of the planet. But unless the ghost has the necessary movement powers to maintain their position, I have to think the earth’s path versus the ghost’s straight line through space would diverge pretty quickly.
Interesting to think about, especially in light of the other reply discussing the hypothetical of ghosts being able to choose & switch frames of reference.
Honestly though, since just about everything is affected by the way gravity bends spacetime, including light, I bet they’d stay with the earth. Maybe just have to hover above the surface in order to not fall down to the core of the planet.
So if they don’t experience gravity they are made of neither matter nor antimatter.
If ghosts are real… then every living thing, cockroach, dogs, fish, fleas, birds, they get ghosts too, billions upon billions of ghosts flooding, saturating the universe.
Inb4 they have miniscule but non zero mass, and they’re the actual dark matter
Unless ghosts come from sentience
All the things they listed are sentient.
Maybe you mean they come from sapience?
There’s a point where you have to question whether sentience is present vs the ability to react to the world… Mostly in flies (which have some of the lowest neuron count of any animal) they just fly towards smell and light etc. - they don’t get angry or upset or noticibly happy and that’s not too far beyond a light switch reacting to you pressing it.
Maybe the word I should have used was “cognizance”? Edit: Probably not but the right word isn’t coming to me
If ghosts were real and we only saw human ghosts, I would have to assume either ghosts are species specific; meaning you can only see ghosts of beings that were the same animal as you. OR the soul is an evolutionary step and humans are the only species that made it far enough to have ghosts
If I was in a world where ghosts were real I would have to assume other “spiritual” aspects from different cultures are real too. So maybe you can only be a ghost of you’re spiritually adept enough 🤷♂️
Rick: “Ok… I need to leave gravity unfinished and make floors finished business.”
If they’re unaffected by gravity, chances are they don’t have mass. If they don’t have mass, they’re not constrained by the Higgs field, which in turn means that they can never move at any velocity below light speed.
Their unfortunate fate is to roam across all of space at the maximum possible velocity in perpetuity.
